Co -founder and CEO of Parantir Alexander Karp opens his new book with a provocative statement: “Silicon Valley has lost its path.”
Over the past decade or more, while the data analytics company was highlighted with its work for American military and intelligence, Karp has mainly stayed out of spotlight. Last year, in a rare interview with The New York Times, he described himself as “progressive but not woke up”, with “a constantly pro-Western view”.
Now, in “Technological Republic: Strong Power, Soft Faith and The Future of the West” (co -author with Nicholas Zamiska, the head of CEO’s corporate affairs and legal councils), Karp has written something of a manifesto. In fact, he and Zamiska describe it as “the beginnings of the articulation of the theory” after Parantir.
In their story, Silicon Valley’s early success was created by a narrow alliance between US technology and government companies. They argue that this alliance has been distributed, with the government “removing the challenge of developing the other wave of technologies without a way out in the private sector”, while Silicon Valley is “turned inside, focusing its energy on customer products, than Projects that speak to address our greatest safety and well -being. “
The duo criticize the results of Silicon Valley as dominated by “advertising and online shopping, as well as social media and video sharing platforms”, suggesting that this is the result of an industry that valorizes the construction of things without asking what is worth it is built or why.
“The main argument we advance on the following pages is that the software industry must rebuild its relations with the government and redirect its effort and attention to building technology and artificial intelligence skills that will address the most pressing challenges with it Which we face collectively, “Karp and Zamiska write.
They also argue that Silicon Valley’s “Engineering Elite” has “an affirmative obligation to participate in protecting the nation and articulating a national project – what is this place, what are our values and what we stand.”
Reviewers are not fully acquired. In Bloomberg, John Ganz complained that “Technological Republic” is not “a book at all, but part of the corporate sales material”.
And in New Yorker, Gideon Lewis-Kraus suggested that the book be a “anachronism”, apparently written before Donald Trump’s victory in the November 2024 elections. Now, Lewis-Kraus wrote, “his vision for a reciprocal relationship Support between Washington and Silicon Valley is given in the meantime almost weird. “
Indeed, one thing that carp and zamiska criticizes is “the reluctance of many business leaders to undertake, in every meaningful way and in addition to the loss of the occasion and theatrical, the next social and cultural debates of our time.”
Of course, we are now seeing at least one business leader take this directive to be involved in politics quite seriously, as Trump’s ally Elon Musk tries to recover the federal government through his government efficiency department.
